Experimental: mitigate texture swapping with TextureArraySpriteBatch (#8604)

* Performance optimization: less texture swapping

* Added experimental setting to Options-Display

---------

Co-authored-by: tunerzinc@gmail.com <vfylfhby>

android/assets/jsons/translations/English.properties

@@ -1359,6 +1359,8 @@ Show unit movement arrows =
  # Requires translation!
 Continuous rendering = 
  # Requires translation!
+Experimental rendering improvements = 
+ # Requires translation!
 When disabled, saves battery life but certain animations will be suspended = 
  # Requires translation!
 Order trade offers by amount = 

android/assets/jsons/translations/template.properties

@@ -732,6 +732,7 @@ Enable display cutout (requires restart) =
 Show tile yields = 
 Show unit movement arrows = 
 Continuous rendering = 
+Experimental rendering improvements = 
 When disabled, saves battery life but certain animations will be suspended = 
 Order trade offers by amount = 
 Ask for confirmation when pressing next turn = 

core/src/com/unciv/models/metadata/GameSettings.kt

@@ -62,6 +62,7 @@ class GameSettings {
     val showPixelUnits: Boolean get() = unitSet != null
     var showPixelImprovements: Boolean = true
     var continuousRendering = false
+    var experimentalRendering = false
     var orderTradeOffersByAmount = true
     var confirmNextTurn = false
     var windowState = WindowState()

core/src/com/unciv/ui/UncivStage.kt

@@ -1,18 +1,37 @@
 package com.unciv.ui
 
 import com.badlogic.gdx.Gdx
+import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.g2d.Batch
+import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.g2d.SpriteBatch
 import com.badlogic.gdx.math.Rectangle
 import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.Stage
 import com.badlogic.gdx.utils.viewport.Viewport
+import com.unciv.UncivGame
 import com.unciv.logic.event.Event
 import com.unciv.logic.event.EventBus
 import com.unciv.ui.crashhandling.wrapCrashHandling
 import com.unciv.ui.crashhandling.wrapCrashHandlingUnit
+import com.unciv.ui.utils.TextureArraySpriteBatch
 import com.unciv.utils.Log
 
 
 /** Main stage for the game. Catches all exceptions or errors thrown by event handlers, calling [com.unciv.UncivGame.handleUncaughtThrowable] with the thrown exception or error. */
-class UncivStage(viewport: Viewport) : Stage(viewport) {
+class UncivStage(viewport: Viewport) : Stage(viewport, getBatch()) {
+
+    companion object {
+        fun getBatch(size: Int=1000): Batch {
+            // If for some reason it fails, we resort to usual SpriteBatch
+            return if (UncivGame.Current.settings.experimentalRendering) {
+                try {
+                    TextureArraySpriteBatch(size)
+                } catch (e: Exception) {
+                    SpriteBatch(size)
+                }
+            } else {
+                SpriteBatch(size)
+            }
+        }
+    }
 
     /**
      * Enables/disables sending pointer enter/exit events to actors on this stage.

core/src/com/unciv/ui/options/DisplayTab.kt

@@ -69,6 +69,11 @@ fun displayTab(
     continuousRenderingLabel.wrap = true
     add(continuousRenderingLabel).colspan(2).padTop(10f).row()
 
+    optionsPopup.addCheckbox(this, "Experimental rendering improvements", settings.experimentalRendering) {
+        settings.experimentalRendering = it
+        onChange()
+    }
+
 }
 
 private fun addMinimapSizeSlider(table: Table, settings: GameSettings, selectBoxMinWidth: Float) {